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Configure International Settings with Intlcfg.exe

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The International Settings and Configuration tool (Intlcfg.exe) is used to configure the language and locale settings in a Windows image. After you add a language pack to a Windows image or a Windows distribution, you must recreate the Lang.ini file. The Lang.ini file specifies the installed languages that you can configure a computer to use.

Note

If you specify default language and locale settings with the Intlcfg.exe tool and specify different language and locale settings in an answer file, the settings in the answer file overwrite the default values specified by the Intlcfg.exe tool.

You can use Intlcfg.exe to:

  • Configure the default international settings to use, including system locale, user locale, and default user interface (UI) language.
  • Report the available and installed language packs
  • Update Lang.ini when new language packs are added.
  • Change the Windows Setup default language.

For a complete list of Intlcfg.exe syntax, see Intlcfg Command-Line Options.

If you are updating a Windows image (.wim) file, you must first either mount or apply the image. For more information, see ImageX Command-Line Options. After updating a mounted Windows image, you must unmount and apply the changes.

To configure international settings

You can use the Intlcfg.exe tool to set the default international settings in a Windows image.

Change the default language and locale in the Windows image by using Intlcfg.exe. For example, to change the all international language settings to French (France), use the following command:

intlcfg.exe –all:fr-FR –image:c:\wim_mount

Optionally, you can configure different values for different language and locale settings, including UI language, system locale, user locale, input locale, and others. For more information about specifying individual values for each of these settings, see Intlcfg Command-Line Options.

To report the available language packs and language settings

You report the list of available and installed language packs in a Windows image by using Intlcfg.exe.

To report the list of languages in a Windows distribution, use the -report, -dist, and -image options. For example,

intlcfg.exe -report -dist:c:\windows_distribution\ -image:c:\wim_mount

The tool reports all the language packs that are available in the langpacks directory of the distribution, as well as the installed language packs in the Windows image.

To recreate the Lang.ini file

After adding new language packs to a Windows image, you must recreate the Lang.ini file.

Use Intlcfg.exe to recreate the lang.ini file and select the default international values. When you add or remove language packs in a Windows image, you must recreate the Lang.ini file. The Lang.ini file is used during Windows Setup and contains a list of all available language packs, the locations of the language packs, and the default language to use during Windows Setup.

For example, recreate the Lang.ini file with the following command.

intlcfg -genlangini -dist:C:\windows_distribution -image:C:\wim_mount

The Lang.ini file is recreated and includes a list of the installed language packs and available language packs in the langpacks folder of the Windows distribution.

To change the default language used in Windows Setup

You can use the Intlcfg.exe tool to change the default language to use during Windows Setup.

First, you must add the Setup multilingual resources to the Windows image. For more information, see Add a Language to Windows Setup.

Then, you must change the default language and locale in the Windows image by using Intlcfg.exe. For example, to change the default language to FR-FR, use the following command.

intlcfg.exe –defaultlang:fr-FR -dist:c:\windows_distribution –image:c:\wim_mount

If you specify a language pack in the Windows distribution, Intlcfg will return an error. A language pack must be installed to the Windows image to be used during Setup. For more information, see Install a Language Pack to an Offline Image.